Yankees Trump Red Sox In Four Game Series Sweep

Mark Teixeira held his bat high, slowly trotting toward first base, unsure whether the ball he’d just sent soaring into the night would stay fair.

The way this series went for Boston and New York, there should have been no doubt.

Teixeira hit the tiebreaking homer two pitches after Johnny Damon went deep in the eighth inning Sunday night, and the Yankees went on to beat the Red Sox 5-2 and complete their first four-game home sweep of their bitter rival in 24 years.

“I’ve hit a lot of balls like that that continue to hook and go foul, and I go back and pick up my bat and dust it off,” Teixeira said. “So I just held onto my bat in case it went foul, I’d just walk back to home plate.” He found himself rounding the bases instead. The home runs off Daniel Bard (0-1) came one inning after Victor Martinez‘s two-run shot off Phil Coke (4-3) had snapped the Red Sox’s 31-inning scoreless stretch. It was the sixth time Damon and Teixeira hit consecutive homers, the most ever for a pair of Yankees in one season. “To be able to do that back-to-back is not an easy task, and Tex stepped up,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. “Big players did big things in the game tonight.”Alex Rodriguez homered in the seventh inning and Nick Swisher added a two-run single later in the eighth for the Yankees. They’ve won seven straight and built a 6½-game lead in the AL East — and have never failed to win the division when leading by more than six.

“You need breaks to win sometimes and we didn’t tonight, and we haven’t got any in a while, so, you know, we’re excited to head back home and start fresh,” Boston’s Dustin Pedroia said. “We’re in the lead of wild card? What’s the deal? Good, so we’ll start over.”

Um, not quite Dustin. Even that was lost after Texas won earlier in the day to move into a tie with Boston. “It’s frustrating, you know, for everyone,” David Ortiz said. “That’s why when you’re on a good roll, you’ve got to try to win as many games as possible, so when you get in that hump, you know, you just deal with it.” The Red Sox finished the disastrous series 3 for 38 with runners in scoring position, scoring two runs total the final three games. Their ugly scoreless streak against New York was Boston’s longest since a 34-inning stretch from Sept. 1-24, 1952, according to STATS LLC.The Red Sox had beaten New York eight straight times to start the season, but now find themselves limping back to Fenway Park. Boston is on a six-game skid and facing it’s largest deficit in the division since Oct. 1, 2006. “So much for 8-0, huh?” Coke said.With the last of four straight sellout crowds at Yankee Stadium serenading the Red Sox with chants of “Sweep, Sweep,” All-Star closer Mariano Rivera worked around a leadoff single in the ninth for his major league-leading 32nd save. “I think that everybody feels the weight of, you know, not scoring enough runs,” said Jason Bay, who was back in the lineup after missing the first three games with a hamstring injury. “I think everybody wants to be that guy to come up and get that big hit. You want to do it so bad you’re, you know, squeezing the bat handle harder.”

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